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La Vucciria, mirror to Palermo’s soul

Photography is an incredible versatile form of visual expression, yet there are instances when only painters, with their brushes, charcoals and colors, can truly capture the essence of a place or the soul of a person. There is something so incredibly intimate in the process of hand-moulding reality on canvas with hues, shade and light, spiritual and carnal all at once. Sometimes, it happens because of the emotions and secret feelings the artist harbors for his or her subject, sometimes because of a creative process at once reflective and frenzied, rational and incomprehensible. Other times, though, the subject does it all by itself, leading the mind and the hand of the artist, because its energy and soul are so powerful it couldn’t happen in any other way.

Vucciria lies in the old Quartiere della Loggia, today part of the Tribunali-Castellammare area

Renato Guttuso’s Vucciria, masterpiece of Italian Neorealism, is one of these paintings: the vividness of its colors, the seemingly haphazard composition - which nevertheless holds within a crystalline harmony - the full, luscious volumes of each figure are so perfectly and quintessentially representative of Palermo and her markets one could almost imagine the city itself told Guttuso how to portray her. Yes, because la Vucciria, Palermo’s most popular market, really is a piece the city’s soul, home to all of her idiosyncrasies: there are colors, scents, music, voices and cheerfulness, but also confusion, stench, filth. Somehow though, and I say it because I experienced it with my own heart and eyes when I was there, one wouldn’t change a single thing. La Vucciria is Palermo, and it is beautiful.

Vucciria became known for more than its meats, in fact, fish soon got to be its main trade, as the market bordered with the old port of la Cala

Visitors, I am sure, tend to get mesmerized by La Vucciria, just as it had happened to me the first time I went, its heady combination of of people, spices, colorful fruit and vegetables, fresh fish, meat making them believe to stroll in a parallel world. Yet, not many know the market has also a very interesting history, that goes hand in hand with that of Sicily itself, and that today it has also become the go-to place for foodies and night life lovers.

Indeed, la Vucciria, which lies in the old Quartiere della Loggia, today part of the Tribunali-Castellammare area, roots its origins in the Middle Ages and gets its name from the French word boucherie, which can both mean butcher store or slaughter house: it was, at least originally, known especially as a meat market. “Bocciria,” it was called then, and it didn’t take long before merchants from all over the South of Europe, Genoa, Pisa, Lucca, Catalunia, Venice, set their “logge” at its very heart; already then, one could find everything at la Vucciria, including rare and precious goods. And already then, like today, this was a place of sounds as much as it was of scents and light, so much so its name turned to be synonym, in Palermo, with racket and noise.

Vucciria's roots its origins in the Middle Ages and gets its name from the French word boucherie

With time, so, la Vucciria became known for more than its meats, in fact, fish soon got to be its main trade, as the market bordered with the old port of la Cala. An old Palermitan expression wanted the impossible being like “when the ground at la Vucciria is dry,” unachievable feature because of the habit to constantly spray fish with water to keep it fresh. But la Vucciria was more than a market: along its streets one could find plenty of specialized shops, their presence witnessed today by the very names of many vie, like via dell’Argenteria Nuova and via dell’Argenteria Vecchia, once home to goldsmiths or via dei Maccheronai, where women would prepare and sell fresh pasta. And then, there was via dei Tintori, via dei Calzolai, via dei Coltellieri.

In this sense, la Vucciria without a doubt still bears the history of Palermo on its sleeve, yet it has changed profoundly. Of Guttuso’s painting, visitors only find hints here and there, sufficient however to make of it an incredibly lively and fascinating spot. Changes are not always negative, though, and modern la Vucciria has plenty of positive features; it has become a symbol of Palermo’s essence and lifestyle and, even more importantly, of its incredible street food, of the tastes and products typical of the city’s tradition and, more at large, of those of the island as a whole. It is a place of inebriating flavors and scents, that becomes lively also in the evenings, when people from all social backgrounds and cultures gather in its alleys and streets to socialize, eat and drink. It has changed, yes. But there’s still plenty to enjoy.

Very recently, La Vucciria turned international, with the creation of an itinerant concept store that opened in Palermo first and has just landed in New York, where it will soon open, then to move in a few months to London, then China and Japan. La Vucciria store is the brainchild of Antonio di Dio, Diana de Concini and of Mario Stancampiano and his team. In it, visitors will find all that is “Sicily,” from olive oil and Modica chocolate, all the way to jewellery and pottery, a true treasure chest of all that the island can offer. The accent is, of course, placed on the idea of tradition, culture and authenticity, an accent that wants to portray Sicily and its products at their best and most genuine.

Visiting La Vucciria concept store will never be the same as visiting the real thing in Palermo, and then again, the real thing is no longer, perhaps, the same as what Guttuso so aptly and beautifully depicted in 1974. Yet, the soul of the city lingers, at la Vucciria, and we visitors can still catch beautiful glimpses of it, reason enough to visit and to take in all that remains of the old market, as well as embracing the new that this corner of Palermo has to offer.